New home for time zone stuff by 2012?

Mon Aug 31 02:00:41 UTC 2009

Mark,

I do understand the there are a number of descriptive (vs prescriptive)
standardization efforts, however very few of them are intended to
maintain a constantly changing reality. This is the destinction I was
trying to draw. The conventional standardization process either creates
a model of a reality, and then enforces that model (with occasional
refinements or modifications), or creates a new prescriptive model that
is likewise updated on a relatively infrequent basis.

In both cases, the intent is for the operational reality to follow the
standard (even if the standard is originally derived from that
operational reality).

The TZ database is a somewhat different kettle of fish, in that it is
more a process of documenting a constantly changing reality. This
process is orthoginal to the conventional standardization process - be
it descriptive (Unicode Locales) or prescriptive (802.11i) in origin. 

In the case of live documentation, you are constantly attempting to keep
up with a changing reality - this requires a greater agility and
responsiveness than your typical formal standard. Conversely, and to use
your example of the Unicode Locales project, once the standard is
documented, it is unlikely that the (for example) date format custom for
a particular region will change in the space of a few days. This is the
sort of rapid change that is commonplace for the TZ database project.

Based on this, I feel that placing the TZ database project under the
control of a traditional standards body with not be appropriate, due to
the very different style of maintenance and thinking required. 

Regards

Rob Masters

Unix Systems Administrator

Bunnings Group Limited

126 Pilbara Street, Welshpool WA 6106

Locked Bag 20, Welshpool WA 6986

Phone: (08) 9365-1507

E-mail : rmasters at bunnings.com.au <mailto:rmasters at bunnings.com.au> 

Website: www.bunnings.com.au

________________________________

From: mark.edward.davis at gmail.com [mailto:mark.edward.davis at gmail.com]
On Behalf Of mark at macchiato.com
Sent: Saturday, 29 August 2009 7:38 AM
To: tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov
Cc: tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov
Subject: Re: New home for time zone stuff by 2012?

There may be some misunderstanding here. While there are some
standardization efforts that are perscriptive, many standardization
efforts are targeted at "reflecting reality as closely as possible". The
Unicode Locales project, for example, aims at getting translations, date
formats, time formats, etc. on the basis of customary usage.

Mark

On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 16:48, Robert Masters <RMasters at bunnings.com.au>
wrote:

	Thank-you Russ!

	That is exactly the sort of response I was hoping for - why NOT
to use
	my suggestion.

	Further, your suggestion has a number of very good points to
support it.

	Eyrie.org has been around for a long time by net standards (over
10
	years now), and has always been well maintained and resourced.
They
	provide the same benefits that Sourceforge offer, with none of
the
	problems that the site currently suffers from. It is independent
of a
	formal body, providing a separation from bureaucratic controls,
and is
	likewise separated from an individual's place of employment.

	I do not think that moving the project under the umbrella of a
standards
	or similar organistation will be of particular benefit, as the
point of
	the project is to reflect reality as closely as possible, not to
try to
	enforce a standard on reality. In many ways it requires the
exact
	opposite of a standards body.

	Regards

	Rob Masters
	Unix Systems Administrator

	Bunnings Group Limited
	126 Pilbara Street, Welshpool WA 6106
	Locked Bag 20, Welshpool WA 6986
	Phone: (08) 9365-1507
	E-mail : rmasters at bunnings.com.au
	Website: www.bunnings.com.au

	-----Original Message-----
	From: Russ Allbery [mailto:rra at stanford.edu]
	Sent: Friday, 28 August 2009 2:55 AM
	To: tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov

	Subject: Re: New home for time zone stuff by 2012?

	"Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E]" <olsona at dc37a.nci.nih.gov>
writes:

	> I'll be eligible to start drawing a pension in mid-2012. Since
I'm
	> accustomed to slow-moving Quaker process, that makes it time
to get
	> serious about finding a new home for time zone stuff.

	> There are several pieces of the puzzle (some of which haven't
seen
	> much work of late):

	>       Data maintenance
	>       Data distribution
	>       Code maintenance
	>       Code distribution
	>       Mailing list maintenance
	>       Mailing list hosting
	>       Standards work (for example, tweaking POSIX TZ
environment
	variables so Godthab can be represented)
	>       Code enhancement (for example, year zero work and Julian
	calendar
	> work)

	Since it's been explicitly mentioned as a suggestion, I guess
I'll be
	one to stand up and say that I'd really hate to see this work
move to
	Sourceforge.  The Sourceforge site is riddled with advertising
in ways
	that have gotten increasingly obnoxious over the years, it's
slow, it's
	often buggy, and the mailing lists that it hosts have
historically also
	mangled outgoing messages with even more advertising.

	In the name of not complaining about something without offering
an
	alternative:

	Moving from hosting based on the current maintainer to hosting
based on
	another individual may not be the best approach, and I certainly
	understand if people would prefer something more distributed
that makes
	it easier to have continuity of access.  However, I'm willing to
host
	the infrastructure for continuing to distribute and discuss the
timezone
	database personally, particularly as an alternative to seeing it
move to
	Sourceforge.

	eyrie.org is my personal domain, independent of any employment
of mine,
	and can offer:

	* Mailing list hosting (via Mailman)
	* Mailing list maintenance (I'm willing to review the moderation
queue)
	* Data distribution via archives.eyrie.org / ftp.eyrie.org
	* Code distribution via archives.eyrie.org / ftp.eyrie.org

	If the number of downloads of the source and data is in excess
of a few
	GiB a day of network traffic averaged over a month, hosting the
	distribution is a bit trickier, but I think it's unlikely that
would be
	the case.  That's over 10,000 downloads of the tarball a day,
and I
	suspect nearly all users get it via distributions or other
sources.

	If whoever is doing the maintenance would like to use a revision
control
	system, I'm happy to host the repository with the caveat that I
would
	like to keep the number of people with access small and
restricted to
	people whose identities I can be reasonably assured about, since
I don't
	have the distributed hosting facilities of a Sourceforge or the
like.
	If the intention is to move to a more open commit model, it
would
	probably be better to explore an option like GitHub, Savannah,
or a
	similar project hosting provider.  If the project would stay
with a
	single committer who just needs a place to upload things, I can
	certainly provide that.

	--
	Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)
	<http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ <http://www.eyrie.org/%7Eeagle/> >

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